I'm finally taking the leap to put myself out there as a lucid dreamer with the hope that I may learn more and perhaps help others with comments and the like.

I am a 50-something-year-old guy that has been having lucid dreams as long as I can remember. I do recall telling my mother at around age 5 about a dream where I was flying over our house and that I could then change and fly to my friends house. She passed it off as a nightmare or silly 5-yr-old musings, but it was (and still is) clear as if I was awake and had super powers.

All through my childhood and teenage years, I found that I could 'setup' my dreams into a group of favorites - many of which I still use today. I didn't know this whole act of lucid dreaming had a name until the mid-1970s or so when I happened to mention it to a then-girlfriend - she worked at a university blood research center but had conversed with someone about nightmares and such - and we got into a heated arguement about dreams. I did some followup research and came across old mentions of lucid dreaming in some long-forgotten books.

Anyway, fast-forward to the present...I'm now married for nearly 32 years, have two wonderful kids that are both out on their own, and I live a typical working professional middle-class comfortable life. No serious worries, no regrets, no 'life issues' - just no one to discuss lucid dreams with...and I thought it might be time to do just that.

I don't use any special techniques as noted here (I've skim-read a few of the introductory articles and such here - interesting) and I have always thought that for me, lucid dreaming was just a way to get a good night's sleep with a twist. I am usually aware of others around me while sleeping/dreaming (this was a great help at times when our kids were little and up in the middle of the night) and I can wake myself up pretty much at will. Yes, I know when I'm dreaming and when I'm awake. I used to scare my parents sometimes when they would 'peek in' on me after being out for an evening dinner or something and I would ask "How was dinner?" while essentially fast asleep at 2 am or so.

I know that this is probably maddening to some here...and perhaps fascinating to others. For me, it's just a way of life that I've always known. I've never participated in studies or really talked to anyone about this outside of my wife and kids and a few friends (that usually nod in that "I don't get it" kind of way).